Iowa City Wins $25,000 From Amazon

Iowa City has been announced as the winner of $25,000 from Amazon. The announcement was made in Washington D.C. as Iowa City was named the winner of the 'Dream Big' Award.

Iowa City was chosen because of the cities efforts to divert people with mental illness and substance abuse problems from jail. The goal of the program is to cut down on ER visits and jail visits and to keep low-level offenders out of the criminal justice system. The city used data gathered and stored in the cloud to match offenders with services that can help them.

The $25,000 reward will go towards more cloud-based services that will be used by law enforcement to help their data based justice. Iowa City police Officer David Schwindt accepted the award on the cities behalf.